Our environment, Our voices
A letter campaign calling for decisions about climate and nature to be shaped by lived experience. People at the sharp end of inequality often face the worst environmental harms, yet are too often left out of the decisions that affect their lives.
What is Our environment, Our voices?
Our environment, Our voices is a collection of letters written by people affected by inequality, sharing in their own words why climate and nature decisions must reflect real life.
The letters are an invitation to policymakers, organisations and community leaders to listen, learn, and involve everyone in shaping environmental solutions.
Watch the video
Read the letters
Why this matters
Inequality and climate change are connected. People already facing barriers, including Disabled people, racially minoritised communities, and people facing financial insecurity, can experience the worst environmental harms and have the fewest resources to adapt.
Our environment must work for everyone. When policy and investment are designed with lived experience, solutions are more practical, fair, and likely to succeed because they reflect how people actually live, travel, work, pay bills, and stay well.
Why now: with major decisions underway, locally and nationally, on environmental policy, investment and green jobs, this is a pivotal moment to ensure the benefits are shared and no one is left out.
What we’re asking
- Read the letters and reflect on what they show about everyday life and environmental change
- Share their message with your networks
- Commit to ‘listen and involve everyone’ when designing climate and nature solutions. Move beyond consultation to meaningful involvement
- Put lived experience into practice by involving communities experiencing inequalities in decisions, delivery and evaluation
About Everyone’s Environment
Everyone’s Environment is an alliance of social purpose and environmental organisations working alongside communities experiencing inequalities to change who is included in decisions about the climate, nature and our futures.
The alliance includes organisations working across disability, race equality, poverty, and environmental action. NPC enables this alliance, working alongside the Race Equality Foundation, Disability Rights UK, Turn2us and more than 80 ambitious organisations and individuals across the UK.
FAQs
Who are the letters from?
The letters are written by people affected by inequality, sharing lived experience of why climate and nature decisions matter, and crucially their solutions to listen and involve everyone.
Who is this campaign for?
This campaign is for anyone shaping environmental decisions, including policymakers, local and national institutions, funders, employers and skills providers, civil society and community organisations, and the media.
How can my organisation support?
Share the letters: Share the message far and wide that climate and nature decisions must reflect the real life experience of people.
Join the alliance: Register your interest in becoming a partner of Everyone’s Environment and join over 80 social purpose and environmental groups working alongside communities experiencing inequalities to change who is included in decisions about the climate, nature and our futures.
Press enquiries
Hannah Fox: hannah@brightfoxcommunications.com
Find out more about Everyone's Environment
Acknowledgements
Thank you to everyone who contributed their time, words and experience to this campaign, and to partners across the Everyone’s Environment alliance who are helping to amplify these voices.
This campaign was made possible thanks to funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, provided through the Everyone’s Environment: Voices programme. Thanks to National Lottery players, we have received £1.4 million over three years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. This funding supports communities across the UK to act on climate change and involve more people in climate action, as part of the Climate Action Fund, a £100 million commitment over 10 years.
We are grateful to National Lottery players for making this work possible and for supporting our efforts to involve everyone in shaping environmental solutions.
With thanks to The National Lottery Community Fund
